Book Ratings

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

From To All The Boys I've Loved Before to Crazy Rich Asians 2018 was the year more book adaptations skyrocketed into the pop culture zeitgeist. Bird Box came on the scene at the end of the year with the popular Netflix film that spawned its own memes and challenges.

Bird Box is a 20 Minutes Into The Future post-apocalypse story where people see something outside that makes them murderous. The book begins with Malorie and two 4-year-olds leaving an empty house and getting into a boat to head down the river blindfolded. Flashbacks from four years earlier are interspersed, showing how the panic started and how Malorie got to the house.

The tension builds as we learn how Malorie and her housemates have to suddenly navigate a world blindfolded. I liked the survivalist aspects of this book, I’ve kind of gotten into books that make me wonder how long I could survive on the canned food in my house.

What was missing for me was character development. It’s revealed early on there were once other people in the house where meet Malorie but they all felt like blank slates, I couldn't tell any of them apart or what their purpose was. I don’t read much horror so I don’t know if plot over character is a convention of the genre or that is just this book.

The audiobook was done by Cassandra Campbell, I've enjoyed her in the past but this wasn't my favorite performance of hers. It felt muted and didn't fully bring me into the story.

I have watched some of the Netflix movie and I enjoyed it so much better than the book. Sandra Bullock is great and the movie fleshes out the motivations and creates connections between the characters in a way the book never did.

The guy who wrote Bird Box's Netflix adaptation is also writing the Leigh Bardugo Netflix series and I can’t wait to see what he does with it. He seems to have the ability to capture the spirit of a book without making it literal.

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

It's that time of the year again! All year long we track our reading and reviewing habits so we can crunch the numbers and pull some stats.

Here are some additional breakdownsRetailers

34% Audio Review Copies

24% Public Library

20% Scribd.com

8% Audible.com

7% Barnes and Noble

5% Fountain Bookstore

2% Amazon.com

Publishers

19% Macmillan

18% HarperCollins

16% Simon and Schuster

16% Penguin

11% Hachette/Hachette Audio

5% Random House

3% Harlequin

3% Candlewick

3% Disney Worldwide

2% Amazon Publishing

2% Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

2% Scholastic

Categories

59% YA Fiction/Non-Fiction

24% Adult Fiction

17% Adult Memoir/Non-fiction

Other Stats

40% of audiobooks narrated by narrators of color

49% 2018 Frontlist Titles

2017 vs. 2018

We reviewed 40% more book this year and our average rating is still at a solid 3.6. The format numbers are the same but it is worth noting that Kat and I "hybrid-read" several books where we did them both in print and on audio.

I'm not surprised to see our non-YA numbers increase as we've both been exploring more genres this year, particularly nonfiction. I know there are a ton of narrative non-fiction titles I want to get to in 2019.

The diversity numbers line up with what we've done previously. This is probably the first year we've been able to say the books reviewed included transgender, lesbian and asexual characters.

Finally, Scribd is back on the scene as a resource for books. I stopped using Scribd after I realized it was skipping chapters on audio and I wasn't a fan of the limited reading, but once they reverted back to "unlimited" it seemed to find a solid place in my reading line-up.